Residents in River Ridge, Belle Chasse, City Park and Metairie had reported coyote sightings and attacks as of Wednesday.

Emmaleigh Wester, of Jefferson Parish, said she created a Facebook page to educate people about coyotes and how to prevent an attack.

"I hear what sounded like cats fighting," Wester said.

Wester was startled from her sleep a couple weeks ago when she heard a commotion outside her parents' Metairie home.

"Right over here, I saw what I thought were three dogs with a cat in their mouth, and then my eyes adjusted and I realized it was three coyotes," said Wester.

She chased the coyotes, running them off, but it was too late. The coyotes had killed her cat, Mr. Darcy.

"I couldn't talk about it for, like, two or three days. It was really upsetting," said Wester.

She said she couldn't believe the attack had happened in such a populated area, just one block off Esplanade Avenue. That's why she decided to create a Facebook page about coyotes. &#12288; "I hope it will give the people the information they need to keep what happened to me from happening to them. It was terrible," she said.

Dorson said recent attacks have prompted the discussion of man versus wild.

"Our objective is to calm people down. We don't have to go out and kill every large animal that we live with," said Dorson.

After hearing a coyote killed a Chihuahua in City Park last Friday, dog owners there said they are on edge.

Wester said some of her neighbors are feeding dozens of stray cats in the area, and she worries the coyotes will return to her neighborhood.

"The food is attracting the cats. The cats are attracting the coyotes," said Wester.

Experts differ as to why the coyotes are being pushed into urban areas, but humane organizations are trying to trap, tranquilize or possibly use an anti-coyote sound system that sounds like cougars to scare them off. One issue is that only private companies are trapping the predators.

The Humane Society plans on hosting a meeting discussing coyotes in the next few weeks.

According to the Humane Society of Louisiana, statewide, there has been one human fatality blamed on a coyote in the state since 1981 and three or four coyote bite cases a year, as opposed to hundreds of thousands of dog bites each year.